100 years of CCP: Where does the party stand now?
As the CCP celebrates its 100th birthday, General Secretary Xi Jinping’s speech highlights the achievement of the party and its priorities for the future
On July 1st, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched celebrations for its 100th birthday. The party has come a long way since its founding on a rainy afternoon in Shanghai, attended by just 13 (or 12) delegates and presided over by a few Soviet-approved comintern members. It has gone from a renegade group of 50 members operating clandestinely, to a force of over 95 million members which presides over the world’s second largest economy.
The party celebrated in style, not only setting up an extremely self-congratulatory special centenary website, but also hosting a series of events including fighter jet flybys, a performance at the bird’s nest stadium in Beijing, and an all-important speech by Xi Jinping. The main theme of these celebrations is to acknowledge just how much the party has done for the country, legitimating the CCP as the best (and only) choice to continue running the country into the future.
Of course, the extent to which many of the ‘achievements’ the party claims to have made are real or, in fact, slight exaggerations is debatable. Luckily for us, there are people who have done the legwork already on deconstructing the so-called achievements of the CCP, so I won’t reiterate them here. Just read this really good article by Kevin Carrico and thank me later.
The celebrations also show the stronghold the party continues to have over the country, though whether or not that was by design is, again, an open question. Messaging has been tightly controlled, with almost everyone being roped into the celebrations, as long as they’re doing it in an appropriate manner. Online, patriotic voices that repeat the party line are amplified, while those who question the party’s narrative of its own history and the history of China are repressed. In general, the party has made sure that its propaganda, which ultimately demands all those who read it to pledge fealty to the political system, continues to spread to all areas of life:
100 years of survival, growth, and struggle, mixed with 72 years of rule, begs the question: where does the CCP see itself now, and what does it view as its role in both China’s future and the future of the world? To understand this, we need look no further than Xi Jinping’s centenary speech, the full text English version of which you can read here. Our goal is simple: analyse the speech, spot the major themes, check whether or not they match up with reality, and, as always, try to predict the future.
Let’s shake our magic 8 ball and see whether or not the CCP is destined to last another 100 years.
View from the top: Interpreting Xi Jinping’s speech
I’ve divided Xi’s speech into 7 (very) unequal sections, each covering a different theme
Part 1 - declaration of achievements (intro)
This part acts as a sort of framing device for the rest of the speech. Xi points out that while it’s a day of celebration, it’s also supposed to be a ‘solemn’ day, when the struggles that the party and the people of China are recognised. The reason why this is so important will become apparent in the next section.
In this short section, the most important thing to note is the focus on past success and its meaning for future success: “we have realized the first centenary goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. This means that we have brought about a historic resolution to the problem of absolute poverty in China, and we are now marching in confident strides toward the second centenary goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects.”
Part 2 - history since 1840
The aim of this section is to contextualise China’s recent history in terms of its humiliation by foreign powers, its attempts at rejuvenation, the struggles of ordinary people to rebuild the country, and the ultimate success of the party in overcoming all obstacles. For notable events of the past 200 or so years, Xi mentions the Taiping rebellion, 1898 reforms, Boxer rebellion, Xinhai revolution, then eventually founding of CCP thanks to Russian revolution. The focus on rebellions and dissident behaviour is telling - the party associates itself with revolutionaries and those trying to topple oppressive systems, despite the fact that it brooks no form of opposition at all itself. It seems one lesson it has really learnt is that allowing alternative movements to flourish is the true danger to internal stability.
An (extremely) brief overview of the CCP since 1921 focuses on its major achievements of “toppling the three mountains of imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat-capitalism and establishing the People’s Republic of China,” as well as liberating the people. This is all language that has been part of CCP rhetoric since the Maoist days, and is exactly what you would expect to see from this sort of speech, especially with what you could classify as a return to ‘traditional’ CCP values in the past decade or so.
Xi praises “socialism with Chinese characteristics” as the tool that “enabled China to transform itself from a highly centralized planned economy to a socialist market economy... and from a country that was largely isolated to one that is open to the outside world across the board... to achieve the historic leap from a country with relatively backward productive forces to the world’s second largest economy.” All of these achievements are framed in terms of China’s ‘national rejuvenation’, which Xi declares to be the party’s overall aim for the country.
There is an interesting teleology at play here. “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” was originally formed as a poverty alleviation policy. But now that this goal has been achieved, Xi is able to use his own language to recast the policies of previous leaders as part of the CCP’s grand plan for rescuing the nation from humiliation of 1840. Using lines such as “China’s national rejuvenation has become a historical inevitability,” he draws a long line through history, making it seem as if the party only had one goal since its founding and that’s always been on the right track. Not only should this be obvious, but it should also highlight that the continued success of China as a nation is therefore reliant on CCP, and the final goal of the party has yet to be achieved.
Part 3 - respect for those who build socialism
Again, this section is what you would expect to see (especially if you listen to the podcast!). We have the usual suspects “comrades Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun” all being praised for their contributions, as well as the revolutionary heroes of workers, peasants and soldiers. Xi also takes a moment to thank those who continue to do service, seeming to place particular emphasis on the role of the PLA, police and security forces.
In a line that seems almost out of place (at least in this section), he also greets “compatriots in the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and in Taiwan as well as overseas Chinese.” I suppose the link here is the ideology of the united han people - hanzu - that the CCP promotes, whereby all people who identify as ethnically ‘Chinese’ form an intrinsic part of China’s soft power and globalisation efforts. The mention of Taiwan in what seems to be a list of Chinese territories may seem subtle here, but it becomes a lot less subtle later.
Part 4 - the continued mission of the party
This section emphasises the party’s favourite pastime of learning from history. As I mentioned earlier, the party likes to link itself with Chinese history of the past 200 or so years and promote its rise as an inevitability. It also tends to link the party to China’s broader 5,000 year history, mainly by ‘drawing lessons from the past’ to show that they are really paying attention to the needs of the country, and are therefore the true inheritors of the mantle (not going to use the ‘MoH’ phrase here but you get where I’m going with this).
This section is actually internally divided into 9 points, each with a headline sentence in bold. First is “We must uphold the firm leadership of the Party.” This is already revealing where the party’s priorities lie, i.e. with maintaining itself, its legitimacy, and its continued control over the people and the nation. I think Xi puts it better than I could: “The Party was chosen by history and the people. The leadership of the Party is the defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics... and [is] the crux upon which the interests and wellbeing of all Chinese people depend.”
Second, “We must unite and lead the Chinese people in working ceaselessly for a better life.” One line that stood out to me from this part was “The Party has no special interests of its own—it has never represented any individual interest group, power group, or privileged stratum.” In other words, the party does not see the perpetuation of its own existence as its own self-interest, but rather in the interests of the people. Xi posits that the two are so intertwined that it is now impossible to separate them. So the party’s interests are by nature the people’s interests, and vice versa.
Third, “We must continue to adapt Marxism to the Chinese context.” Basically, how can we justify calling ourselves a ‘communist’ party when most of our practices are so far removed from the original ideal of Marxism? He doesn’t answer this question by the way, and instead proceeds to list out all the way in which Marxism has already been adapted, e.g. Mao Zedong Thought, Jiang’s Three represents, with Xi Jinping Thought nestled in nicely at the end.
Fourth, “We must uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics.” This one is pretty self-evident: development of a market economy with an emphasis on science and technology and becoming more self-sufficient and prosperous. One interesting line is that China will “welcome helpful suggestions and constructive criticism. We will not, however, accept sanctimonious preaching from those who feel they have the right to lecture us.” Yikes.
Fifth, “We must accelerate the modernization of national defense and the armed forces.” Simply put, a modern nation needs a modern army, mainly to protect its sovereignty which is discussed more in depth later. But Xi also mentions how the military is key to protecting China’s ‘development interests’, which could be a reference to the overseas projects such as ports and ‘technology corridors’ that form part of China’s vague Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and which have prompted concerns over the dual commercial and military aims of the scheme.
Sixth, “We must continue working to promote the building of a human community with a shared future.” Xi emphasises the role of BRI in creating new opportunities in the world, and insists that “China has always worked to safeguard world peace, contribute to global development, and preserve international order.” OK fine whatever, let’s not quibble. But, funnily enough as soon as he’s done talking about peace and cooperation and harmony, he ends on the rather powerful line “we will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress, or subjugate us. Anyone who would attempt to do so will find themselves on a collision course with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.” This rather controversial line - which literally translates to something like ‘broken and bleeding head’ - caused an uproar on Twitter.
Regardless of whether or not you want to interpret it literally, however, it clearly sends a strong message about the state of Chinese nationalism, and certainly implies a threat of action if not outright violence.
Seventh, “We must carry out a great struggle with many contemporary features.” This part reinforces the previous section, stating that the party and people must be increasingly vigilant and ‘always be prepared for potential danger.’ It comes across as a little paranoid, with Xi indicating that there may be threats from within as well as abroad that could threaten national security.
Eighth, “We must strengthen the great unity of the Chinese people.” Here Xi focuses on patriotism, and the need to strengthen theoretical and political guidance among the people. Again, he also talks about Chinese people ‘at home and abroad’ as being integral parts of China’s national rejuvenation projects.
Ninth, “We must continue to advance the great new project of Party building.” Xi assures us the reason the party is so great is because it practices self-governance, and thus doesn’t need outside forces to regulate it. He refers to the party as a ‘pure’ organisation that needs to continue to hire those of ‘both moral integrity and professional competence’, while rooting out any corruption that may threaten the otherwise perfect health of a flawless institution.
Part 5 - national sovereignty
Though this is only a short section, this part is enough to establish the party’s intentions towards the questions of Hong Kong (and Macao, even though no one cares about Macao) and Taiwan. Xi promises to let the One Country, Two Systems policy play out and guarantees a high level of autonomy for the special administrative regions. With the caveat of ‘ensuring social stability’, of course. And we’re already beginning to see the effects of that approach.
On Taiwan, the one-China principle is trotted out once again, and Xi restates China’s goal of reunification with the island nation. He vows to defeat the very notion of ‘Taiwan independence’, which... sure, OK, we all get it by now.
Part 6 - appeal to the youth
Interestingly, there is a very short section that identifies the youth of China as the future of the nation and the bastions of the party’s aims. I’ll get to why I think this section is important a little later on, but in general it appeals to them to “make it their mission to contribute to national rejuvenation and aspire to become more proud, confident, and assured in their identity as Chinese people so that they can live up to the promise of their youth and the expectations of our times, our Party, and our people.”
Part 7 - appeal to party members
Finally, we have the direct message to the members of the party “to stay true to our Party’s founding mission and stand firm in your ideals and convictions,” before closing. Once again, Xi emphasises how the Chinese nation was once “in decline and withering away in the eyes of the world,” and it’s now up to the party to make sure that this doesn’t happen, and China can fulfill its potential to become a truly prosperous nation, led by the guiding hand of the CCP.
Major themes that I identified:
National security: neutralising both internal and external threats; reuniting China’s territory
Patriotism: the party and people as inseparable; the party as rightful leaders of country; overseas Chinese as part of China
China’s Place in the world: the BRI as an opportunity creator; China’s unwillingness to be lectured or bullied, thus undoing the legacy of the century of humiliation
Illusion and disillusion
OK, I know that was really long, but we’re still not done yet. I just want to talk briefly about the ways in which Xi may have glossed over some of the problems that the CCP is objectively facing that either directly or indirectly contradict his overall messaging. I’ll try and keep it short.
First, internal stuff. While polls of Chinese people conducted by Chinese authorities show that the people’s views of the party have never been better, these clearly objective studies jar slightly with the reality. While China boasts about lifting everyone out of poverty, its wealth gap remains incredibly high, to the extent that many young people are simply opting out of society in order to preserve what sense of self they have left, much to the horror of the party. China’s falling birth rate - which stands to threaten the country’s future development - could also be seen as a marker of people’s disillusionment with the system, as well as a symptom of how hard it is to really get on and succeed when you have multiple children. The introduction of a three-child policy also reflects the party’s obsession with control. Why not just eliminate birth caps altogether? Perhaps the issue is not about numbers after all.
As for the question of territorial integrity (read: Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang), there’s a simple question to be answered: are we really united if you have to force it?
As for China on the international level, things are not looking as opportunistic as Xi tried to present. China is increasingly viewed negatively by people around the world, reaching their highest point since Pew bothered asking people about it. 81% of Australians, UK 75%, US 73% view China unfavourably as of October 2020, partly due to coronavirus, but also because of a lack of confidence in Xi Jinping to ‘do the right thing’ internationally, the Xinjiang cotton scandal and other human rights issues in places like HK and Taiwan. There is also increasing disillusionment and mistrust of Belt and Road, both by foreign countries and observers.
This is hardly a surprising attitude towards a country that continues to say it wants peace, but is more than happy to point the finger at others even when unprovoked.
100 more years?
You guys know I love making predictions over here, so what better way to celebrate the CCP’s 100th birthday than trying to guess when they’ll finally kick the bucket.
Obviously, nothing lasts forever, but I have to admit that the CCP is poised to last for a long time, mainly due to its ability to keep its eye on the most important issues plaguing the party and country, its methods of securing control, and its skills in self-promotion. Xi’s speech shows the party's intentions are to secure its territory above anything else, and it is no longer willing to accept interference from other nations (even though they’ve been saying that for years, but the language is getting more belligerent, trust me). There are some major underlying problems, but the party may be able to get away with not fixing them for a little while longer due to the strength of its security forces, propaganda teams, and censorship mechanisms.
If it can fix these problems, that will of course be even better. But the question is, would the CCP rather solve China’s problems, or suppress the voices that cry out against them with brute force? Right now, the party appears to be choosing the strongman tactic. But there is some potential for them to soften their approach to both their own citizens and other governments, especially in a post-Xi era. Who knows, the next leader may see China return to the ‘peaceful rise’ rhetoric of the Hu Jintao era, but we may have to wait another 100 years to reach that stage. And who knows if some other force the party wasn’t able to predict, censor, or suppress wouldn’t have overthrown them already by then.
Sources
Asia Society Policy Institute, Weaponizing the Belt and Road Initiative
Bloomberg, China's Bungled Overseas Loans Reveal a Key Weakness
Elena Barabantseva, “Trans-nationalising Chineseness: Overseas Chinese Policies of the PRC's Central Government”
Global Times, China holds art performance to celebrate CPC centenary
The Guardian, ‘Making China great again’: pomp and propaganda as CCP marks centenary
The Guardian, ‘Poverty divides us’: gap between rich and poor poses threat to China
Kevin Carrico, The Chinese Communist Party at 100: Nothing to Celebrate
Pew Research, Unfavorable Views of China Reach Historic Highs in Many Countries
Sinobabble, 1 kid, 2 kids, 3 kids, none? China's modern family problem
Sixth Tone, Tired of Running in Place, Young Chinese ‘Lie Down’
Xinhua, Who's behind some of the ongoing & prolonged conflicts worldwide?
Xinhua, Full Text: Speech by Xi Jinping at a ceremony marking the centenary of the CPC